Ricky Ponting Lends Support To Nathan Coulter-Nile For Test Format

Former Australian skipper believes that injury-marred fast bowler Nathan Coulter-Nile, who is battling for a place, deserves to join national side in the Test format while adding he has shown a great promise with the ball, in the recent past.

“Anyone who can bowl above 140kph and swing the ball in India is going to make an impact. He’s [Nathan Coulter-Nile] a highly-talented player and he’s probably someone who’s been a little bit forgotten in Australian cricket because he’s been injured so much,” Ponting was quoted by Cricket.com.au.

While praising the 29-year-old fast bowler, Ponting expressed his satisfaction over the performance of the bowler Coulter-Nile, who has given his best before being part of the ongoing Indian Premier League.

“We didn’t see him at all last season domestically, but the year before that we’d seen him in the Australian one-day and T20 teams and he was on the fringe of playing some Test cricket as well,” Ponting remarked.

Coulter-Nile suffered from bone stress fracture before he was ruled out of domestic cricket in 2016-17 for Australia.

“It’s not what the Indian top-order players are used to seeing and even for overseas top-order players, you’ve still got to be good enough to score runs and not get out against high-quality fast-bowling like Coulter-Nile’s,” Ponting asserted.

As the miseries continued for the West Australian-born right-arm fast bowler, he injured his both the shoulders in different games while fielding after suffering from hamstring injuries.

“You can mention him in the same breath as (James) Pattinson and those sort of guys. I don’t think he’s ahead of those guys if they’re fit, but I think he’s just behind them,” Ponting revealed.

The veteran batsman Ponting revealed Coulter-Nile has further to wait as he is expected to be named in the Australian Test squad soon given to his capability.

“When they’re together and are all fit at the start of this summer, there’s going to be some really, really interesting decisions made by the Australian selectors. And Coulter-Nile’s name will be up there,” Ponting concluded.

While making a defining comeback from injury, Coulter-Nile, who is the part of IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders, has bagged 11 wickets in this season so far in six games he has played.

In overall 24 IPL games, he has bagged 32 wickets at an average of 21.37 with the economy of 7.87.

Coulter-Nile, who made his debut in 2013, has played 17 Twenty20 Internationals and 16 One-day Internationals for Australia. In both the limited-overs format he has bagged 48 wickets.

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